Miami at Kentucky: How Well Will Miami Shoot Inside Rupp Arena?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 All right.
00:02 Kentucky is hosting Miami.
00:05 This is kind of a dream matchup for you in a lot of ways, good and bad.
00:11 I know you told me before the podcast that you were interested in the game,
00:17 but you would wish that was down in Coral Gables.
00:20 I get it.
00:21 Kentucky has been very --
00:23 It's important, I think, for the program,
00:25 because if you're going to establish yourself as a "upper echelon hoops
00:30 program," you eventually got to go on the road and beat somebody,
00:33 then kind of one of those just random intersectional rivalry games that other
00:37 teams play.
00:38 Has Miami ever even played at Kentucky?
00:41 If they have, I mean, they might have 30, 40 years ago.
00:44 Who knows?
00:45 But it probably wasn't any time recently.
00:47 When did we play last?
00:49 I don't know that it was at Kentucky.
00:51 I think it was a neutral site.
00:53 Maybe it was a tournament.
00:55 It was in the Frank Hager.
00:57 It was a while ago.
00:58 I don't remember where it was, though.
01:00 Should have looked it up.
01:01 Playing at Rupp Arena, win or lose, adds to the culture of your program,
01:06 adds to the history of your program.
01:08 As a guy that grew up in the Midwest, whether you like them or not,
01:13 and I don't, you still respect the brand and their fandom,
01:17 all of those things.
01:19 I think it will be good, not just for --
01:21 I mean, Claire and Aga doesn't need any help with basketball history,
01:23 obviously,
01:24 but it's going to be very important that the players kind of see this,
01:29 and after you play in that environment,
01:31 there's really nothing else you're going to see.
01:33 The rest of this season is going to be that crazy.
01:36 I guarantee you.
01:37 This prepares you for the tournament.
01:40 100%.
01:41 This is like playing at Duke, Kansas, Indiana.
01:44 There are certain gyms.
01:45 It's not only that, but this is a ranked matchup.
01:48 Miami comes in at number eight.
01:50 Kentucky comes in at number 12, their only loss having been Kansas,
01:53 and that was a close game.
01:54 Kentucky's got a few guys injured.
01:56 Some of their big men, so that gives us a little bit of the advantage.
01:59 But both Miami and Kentucky are top 10 in three-point field goal percentage.
02:04 That is the --
02:06 So this is going to be a high-scoring game.
02:09 I think I tweeted out --
02:10 I saw that -- was it yesterday or today?
02:12 I don't remember, but I saw that stat,
02:14 that they're both top 10 in field goal, like three-point field goal percentage,
02:17 and I was like, all right, first team to 100 wins.
02:20 I'm curious how that will go because the one thing I've learned in basketball,
02:24 especially early in the year when the kids still have their legs,
02:26 you know, they're not wore out and beat up,
02:28 when they play another team that is like them, they play better defense.
02:32 That's usually how it works.
02:33 Now, I'm not saying both teams won't score over 80.
02:35 I doubt either one gets to 90.
02:37 That would be my guess because I think --
02:40 Honestly, so here's my take.
02:44 I think maybe it could be a low-scoring game
02:46 because this is coming off the Thanksgiving break,
02:48 so both teams haven't played in a bit.
02:50 Like our last game was the Bahamas tournament against Kansas State on Sunday.
02:55 That's correct.
02:56 Last Sunday.
02:57 That's over a week.
02:58 That's a long way.
02:59 Over a week ago.
03:00 But they shot lights out of the ballroom that they played in.
03:04 God, I hope we never get invited to that tournament ever again.
03:08 Such a horrible setup.
03:10 So hopefully that continues because we shot them out the gym.
03:13 Kansas State had no chance.
03:15 I mean -- and it's not just Wuga.
03:18 I mean, Nigel, obviously everyone knows he can shoot.
03:21 He had like seven threes, five of them in the first half.
03:25 He gets hot, man.
03:26 Making threes.
03:28 Bensley Joseph's offensive game has taken even a bigger leap
03:31 than I thought it would.
03:33 I didn't think he'd be this good by the end of the year, and he's already --
03:36 Yeah, and that was my thing.
03:38 And if you've seen any of my off-season podcasts on Buckets,
03:43 my concern with starting Nigel and Bensley was not only the fact that they're
03:47 small, but Bensley's offensive game was not very good last year.
03:51 He was on the floor because he's an elite defender,
03:53 and his defense has even gotten even better, if that's even possible.
03:55 But it has.
03:57 But the jump in his three-point shooting, I didn't expect it.
04:01 I was like, okay.
04:02 And then you've got Matt Cleveland,
04:04 who has the best mid-range game I've ever seen.
04:08 Like, I apologized to him on Twitter.
04:10 I was like, I'm really sorry, Mr. Cleveland.
04:12 I underestimated the value you were going to bring to the scene.
04:15 Like, I knew he was good.
04:17 But his mid-range little pull-up jumper is elite.
04:21 He makes these shots, and I'm just like, okay now.
04:24 And it's great because also Norchad is making some threes too.
04:28 But you're having to extend the defense, and people can't cheat onto Nigel
04:32 because everybody knows Nigel can shoot from the entranceway of an arena.
04:36 But because Wuga's three-point field goal percentage
04:41 is higher than his regular field goal percentage.
04:44 So Wuga's shooting lights out.
04:46 Bensley's making threes.
04:47 Cleveland's making threes.
04:49 You can't cheat on Nigel anymore,
04:50 and you saw that happen in the Kansas State game.
04:52 They were having to cover everybody,
04:53 and Nigel was just loading up and made seven of –
04:56 I think seven of nine from three.
04:58 That'll work.
05:00 So we're going to live and die by the three.
05:04 And Kentucky has kind of been doing that as well
05:06 because of some injuries to some key players.
05:08 I don't know who they're going to have back,
05:10 but this is going to be a three-point – like a three-point fest.
05:14 Whoever has a better three-point field goal percentage
05:16 is going to win this game.
05:18 I can see that.
05:20 The only thing that I will add to that is your point earlier about injuries.
05:24 And I haven't checked Kentucky's injury situation,
05:26 and I have a rule in general.
05:28 There are three things that college coaches do football or basketball.
05:31 Number one, they lie about injuries, and then you repeat that two more times.
05:36 They will not give you –
05:38 do you think I trust John Calipari to give me a really good injury report?
05:42 No.
05:43 I don't.
05:45 If Miami is going against a smaller lineup,
05:48 it's a little bit different than most times, and here's why.
05:51 Not just the talent that the Wildcats would be losing,
05:54 but Calipari always has a big man that's going to the NBA.
05:57 He always does, literally.
05:59 You can't prepare with that all offseason
06:02 and then pull the reins back and practice for a week, two weeks, and change your –
06:07 it's just not – it's not like it's Calipari.
06:09 He's a good basketball coach, but it's not the same.
06:12 However, Miami pretty much plays that way at least 20%
06:16 or 20 minutes out of 40 when – he's 6'5" and a half, 6'6".
06:22 That's just how they play.
06:23 Now they bring in guys that are 6'8" to 6'10",
06:25 but Miami plays that way straight up in their starting lineup.
06:29 We play small ball anyway.
06:30 That's what I mean.
06:31 So I would think that's a 5-10 point advantage.
06:35 The question is always still the same, to your point originally,
06:38 how do you play in rough arena and shoot?
06:41 It's one of the weirdest things ever.
06:43 Certain guys go into certain gyms and they see the rim right and they shoot well.
06:48 You have no way to project that.
06:50 But if they come out and Kentucky's playing small ball and not comfortable
06:53 and Miami shoots well early, they could get out to a 10-15 point lead.
06:57 They could go either way.
06:58 That's what happened to us in the Final Four.
07:01 We got on that stage.
07:02 They couldn't hit the ocean.
07:03 They couldn't hit the ocean.
07:04 We couldn't throw a rock in the ocean.
07:07 It turned into because UConn has height, they were able to play their game
07:11 and we couldn't even make a layup.
07:13 It was terrible.
07:14 That happened when we played Georgia in that first game in the Baja Mar Tournament.
07:19 We were not – our three-point percentage was down.
07:22 I think Luga's three-point percentage dropped like 20%
07:24 because he was missing threes.
07:26 One, because it was a ballroom.
07:27 I don't know if you saw the actual view of the entire court.
07:29 It wasn't exactly a normal spatial kind of view.
07:33 It's like playing in a dome.
07:34 The perception and everything and the angles and stuff,
07:36 I think a lot of that had played into us and how bad we shot in the Final Four
07:39 because remember the Final Fours played in a football stadium.
07:42 I was sitting in the 600s for the Final Four.
07:45 So just shooting and everything.
07:48 This is like a basketball gym, but it's going to be so loud and so chaotic.
07:54 This is a true road test.
07:57 You want to talk about going into a hostile environment,
07:59 this is going to be – this is Cameron Indoor type craziness, maybe even crazier.
08:07 Well, there's 20,000 plus people in that gym.
08:10 I forget what it holds.
08:11 It's one of the biggest.
08:12 I think it's bigger than Cameron Indoor.
08:14 Oh, Cameron's small.
08:15 It's just loud.
08:16 But it's going to be insane.
08:18 I mean, we're ranked higher than Kentucky,
08:20 but Kentucky's coming in as the favorite.
08:21 The last I saw, we were like six and a half point underdogs.
08:24 So we'll see.
08:26 I'm unfortunately working tomorrow, so I'm just going to be checking scores